A high speed, high gain preamplifier system for silicon strip detectors

A high-speed, high-gain amplifier system has been designed for silicon strip detectors. The amplifier has been designed using a semicustom bipolar linear array. A practical integration of this amplifier into a working system is considered in the present work. To maximize board density and reduce cost, a novel, relatively inexpensive custom chip carrier was designed. The design approach could be useful for other custom or semicustom chip designs. Insight into the design of a 128-channel preamplifier circuit board for low noise and low crosstalk using the new carrier is presented. A relatively new high-density cable with mass termination capability was used for transmitting signals from the preamp to the discriminator boards. As part of the overall design, the approach taken for shielding of the detector, preamplifier cards, and output cables is discussed.<>